Monday, February 16, 2015

Police Beat: Pasco, WA

A civilian motorist (Dario Infante Zuniga) captured police gunning down yet another unarmed citizen. The propensity of police to simply use their weapons to solve a problem is unacceptable. The man killed in this video is Antonio Zambrano-Montes. Because he was mentally impared, he did not immediately surrender to police when confronted in a parking lot. A Taser shot failed to have an effect. Zambrano-Montes was unarmed at all times during this death scene. He did pick up two rocks and throw them at the police officers. They responded by shooting him five times. The suspect then fled across an intersection and rasied his hand where the pursuing police shot him eight more times. Zambrano-Montes died at the scene. It was not the first time Zambrano-Montes struggled with police officers; in January he was shot with a Taser, subdued and arrested. He was killed a day after being released from police custody. Fleeing is not automatically a basis to shoot a man to death, especially if he is unarmed. Police need to go back to training to understand lethal force is a last resort, not the first.